City rivalries are an engine for development

Over the past five years, the country's northeastern region - home to industries such as oil refining and steelmaking - has been facing an accelerating decline, as have the country's rich mineral resource areas such as Hebei province and the Inner Mongolia autonomous region. China's traditional industries are suffering, and as a result, over the last decade, the populations of about one-third of China's 600 cities have declined. Thus the prospects for dispersed populations away from China's megacities have diminished. But all these are actually a result of what is widely considered very good news: China's economic transformation is progressing.

In recent years, China's economy has become increasingly reliant on new technology and modern service industries, including the mobile internet, artificial intelligence, smart cars, drones, robots, virtual reality, wearable devices, green technology, and more. This has led to jobs and growth becoming increasingly concentrated in some high-productivity megacities, making them magnets for skilled labor and venture capital.

The rapid growth of China's high-tech industries was thrown into sharp relief earlier this month at the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada, where Chinese firms accounted for 40 percent of all exhibitors - a figure that would have been unthinkable just five years ago. Many of those firms are from Shenzhen, China's first special economic zone and now the country's leading technology center.